LIST AND EXPLANATION OF PLATES, 



Frontispiece. Centronix Bairdii, Baird. — Baird's Sparrow, 

 taken at Ipswich, Mass. 



Plate I.* Instruments used in preparing birds, etc., and for 

 blowing eggs. Fig. 1, Common Pliers; Fig. 2, Cutting Pliers; Fig. 

 3, Tweezers ; Fig. 4, Scalpel ; Figs. 5 and 6, Egg-drills ; Fig. 7, 

 Blow-pipe ; Fig. 8, Hook for removing embryos from eggs. 



Plate II. — Wings, showing the positions of the different feathers, 

 as follows : — 



Fig. 1. Wing of a Red tailed Hawk (Buteo boreal is, Vieill.). — 

 a indicates the primaries, or quills ; b, secondaries ; c, tertiaries ; 

 d, scapularies ; g, greater wing-coverts ; f, lesser wing-coverts ; e, spuri- 

 ous wing, or quills. 



Fig. 2. Wing of a Coot, or Mud Hen (Fidica Americana, Gmelin). — 

 a indicates the primaries, or quills ; b, secondaries ; c, tertiaries ; 

 d, scapularies ; e, spurious wing, or quills. 



The tertiaries and scapularies are elongated in most of the aquatic 

 birds, and in some of the Waders. They are always prominent, if not 

 elongated, on long-winged birds, such as the Eagles, Hawks, Owls, 

 Vultures, etc. ; while they are only rudimentary on short-winged birds, 

 such as the Thrushes, Warblers, Sparrows, etc. 



Plate III. Head of the Bald Eagle (Halicetus leucocephalus, 



Savigny), showing the different parts, as follows: — a, the throat; 

 b, chin ; c, commissure, or the folding edges of the mandibles ; d, 

 under mandible; s, gonys; p, gape ; g, upper mandible; h, culmen ; 

 i, tip; j, base of bill; k, cere (naked skin at the base of the upper 

 mandible, prominent in the rapacious birds); 1, frontal feathers; 

 m, lores ; n, crown ; o, occiput. 



* Plates I , IV., V., VI., VIII., IX , X., and the frontispiece will be more fully 

 explained hereafter. 



